Internet web sites are accessible by a variety of different computing devices such as personal computers (PCs) and wireless devices including mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Some web site domains contain web pages designed for specific browsers. The configuration of the web pages may be different depending on the browser used to access the web site. For example, a PC has a larger display than a typical wireless device. Thus, a web site designed for a browser used with a PC may include more content and features per page than a web site designed for access by a wireless device.
Many web sites are designed for access only by a PC browser. In many cases, it may be difficult to determine which web sites include content compatible with wireless devices. If a web site domain designed for a PC is accessed by a wireless device, a web page retrieved from that web page must be adapted for use by the wireless device by converting elements of the web page into a format that is suitable for the wireless device browser. A growing number of web sites serve different versions of web pages depending on whether or not a non-PC based browser is used to request a page. However, it is difficult to identify which domains have enabled this capability and which sites may further sub-divide or modify the presentation of the requested content based on individual models or capabilities of the wireless devices requesting a page.
When mobile web users conduct a search, many aspects of the search experience are less than optimal relative to a PC-based search and could be improved. In one example, search results may come from domains that have web pages formatted for mobile browsers. However, the search results may also be associated with web pages that are designed only for PC browsers, or are not optimized for presentation using a mobile device browser. In another example, the search results may be provided by a global search engine that searches the general internet space without regard to specific local mobile carriers. Thus, only search results that are globally popular may be returned while content that is only popular within a specific culture, country or geographic region may be overlooked.
Whether or not the search results come from mobile-friendly web pages may adversely affect the ranking of the search results in the sense of which results may be most relevant to a user of a mobile device. This is because PC-compatible web sites are commonly ranked based on how many other domains or web pages link to the site. However, this method of ranking search results is less useful for wireless-compatible web sites because the mobile web is fragmented and has less cross-linking than standard, PC-based web sites. Since fewer mobile-friendly web pages link to other mobile-friendly web pages and the mobile web is smaller than the standard web, it is difficult to identify which search results contain the most popular or useful information for a user of a mobile device.
Other factors may adversely affect the ranking of search results or the usefulness of such ranking when a search is requested from a wireless device. Due to the single country-based nature of mobile networks, mobile browsing is a more localized phenomena than the standard world wide web. As a result, there is commonly insufficient capability in many commercial search engines to differentiate between unique mobile device users. In addition, new additions to an index of mobile-compatible web pages may be delayed such that the searching of quickly evolving web pages may not return the most current content. Lastly, search results from mobile-friendly web sites may be corrupted by publishers looking to enhance rankings by employing a range of techniques to circumvent existing search algorithms.
Therefore, what is needed are better methods for identifying web sites that are compatible with wireless devices and for discovering relevant mobile-friendly web content.